Blog Archives

Essential Soundtracks: Mastered for iTunes

5/27/2016

This is the ninth entry of an ongoing series to list (via screenshots) the "Mastered for iTunes" albums that Apple Music has spotlighted.

So far, we have the following links:
Essential Rock Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Jazz Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Metal Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Pop Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Country Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential R&B Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Alternative Albums - Mastered for iTunes
Essential Classical Albums: Mastered for iTunes

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J River plus Amazon Echo = ALL KINDS OF AWESOME!

5/21/2016

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Amazon Echo Dot

So I finally got the Amazon Echo Dot that I ordered a while back. It has been an awesome addition to our kitchen (I will review many of the features in the near future. I just want to live with it a while first), especially for controlling Hue Lights that we have in the area and for listening to Pandora and Amazon Prime Music. However, if you have read my blog, you know that I like having music available all over the house via Airplay, so I wanted to see if I could do more with it.

Note: I get paid commissions for purchases made through any links to Amazon products in this post.

Mad Skills

The Alexa app for the iPhone has numerous "skills" you can add. Many aren't that useful, but I ran across one for J River Media Center. While J River isn't cheap at nearly $50, it is a great program because it plays so many formats. I already had an old version (version 18) of it that I actually have on the Windows 10 partition of my iMac. I wasn't sure if this old version would work with this "skill", but I thought it was worth trying it out.

First off, to give Alexa control over J River, you need to forward a port and create a static IP. I found everything I needed to do to make the possible by following the instructions on this port forwarding website. The instructions made the process easy enough that I was able to get it to work on my first try (photo below from J River website).

House Band

.Once the port was forwarded, I was ready to try it out. With this skill you have to say "Alexa, launch House Band". Alexa will ask you what you want it to play. In this case, I said "play the album Kind of Blue by Miles Davis". To my surprise, the album started playing, but not on the Echo. It was playing from the computer running J River. At first, I thought this was a downside, but in fact, it turned out to be much more flexible.

Airfoil

I have written about Airfoil ($30 for Windows) in the past. You can search for more about it on my site, but the main thing it does is send audio signals from your computer to any Airplay receiver you have on your network. It also works with multiple Airplay receivers and you can choose any combination of receivers or all of them.

In this case, I opened the Airfoil Satellite iOS app that lets me select which Airplay speakers get audio and directed Airfoil to send audio to my living room receiver. It started playing the music in that room instead. (the pic below is from my Airfoil 5 review. As you can see, it works with Bluetooth, as well. The company is also working on Chromecast integration.)

Echo isn't mobile

The problem is that the Echo is in my kitchen and I want to be able to use the feature all over the house and even out on the deck. I didn't want to buy a bunch of Echos for putting around the house, so I found a better (cheaper) solution. The answer was the $5 Lexi iOS app. This app will put Alexa in the palm of your hands. (Note: You may need at least one Echo to get the "skills" on the app, but I don't know for sure).

Lexi

Once I connected Lexi to my Amazon account, I was up and running. You also have to give the app access to your microphone. The only difference is you have to hold down your finger in the middle of the screen to verbalize to Lexi the same commands that you gave Alexa. But the upside, it that with the Lexi app and the Airfoil Satellite iOS app, I can put music anywhere in the house with very little effort.

The Wrap Up

While Siri has some of these same functions if you use Apple Music, this gives your Echo/iPhone access to your J River music collection and that often means that I am listening to my lossless (ALAC) music files rather than the compressed versions that are available on Apple Music. If you just listen to it from your computer's sound card rather than Airplay (which is limited to 16/44.1 files), J River will play high resolution formats and give you numerous options to make sound quality that much better.

In short, playing anything from your music collection by just telling Alexa to play it, is simply awesome!

Note: I get paid commissions for purchases made through any links to Amazon products in this post.

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Essential Classical Albums: Mastered for iTunes

5/20/2016

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This is the eighth entry of an ongoing series to list (via screenshots) the "Mastered for iTunes" albums that Apple Music has spotlighted.

So far, we have the following links:
Essential Rock Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Jazz Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Metal Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Pop Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Country Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential R&B Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Alternative Albums - Mastered for iTunes

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My Gadget Backpack

5/15/2016

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I just got back from a trip to the beach, but while I was there, I thought it would be a perfect time to record a quick off-the-cuff video about what is in my gadget bag with my iPhone. Believe it or not, I used almost everything in the bag while we were on vacation.

The Stuff

Here is the stuff (with links) to most of the stuff in the video:

Note: I get paid commissions for purchases made through any links to Amazon products in this post.

Case Logic Backpack
UAG iPad Pro 9.7 Case
Apple TV 4th Gen
SteeleSeries Nimbus Controller
PlugBug
Swiss Army Knife
ATH M50 Headphones
Etymotic Research ER4P
Beastgrip
Kindle (the new version is in link)
Intocircuit Power Bank
Roocase
Bluetooth Speaker
Amazon Travel Case
iPhone Mic
Dragonfly DAC
Plugable

Note: Please see my other videos for information related to Dragonfly DAC

Note: I get paid commissions for purchases made through any links to Amazon products in this post.

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Five Apple Music Suggested Changes

5/13/2016

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Bloomberg is reporting that several changes to Apple Music will be coming soon:

"Apple Inc. is planning sweeping changes to its year-old music streaming service after the first iteration of the product was met with tepid reviews and several executives brought in to revive the company's music strategy departed."

The first part of the statement really doesn’t make much sense for a service that has grown from zero to 13 million in less than a year. The last couple of months they have reportedly added a million new users per month. Personally, that doesn’t sound like much of a reason to make “sweeping” changes, unless they care more about “tepid reviews" than the number of people that are happily using the service.

That being said, Apple is known for constantly tweaking their hardware and software, so no one would be surprised by a change to the service now that they have data to see what people use, don’t use, like, and don’t like. In other words, I have no doubt that we will see changes, I am just not sure that I believe that "tepid reviews" has anything to do with it.

Since they are changing the service, I decided to make a list of five things I think they need to change and why they need to change them.

Matching

Matching is basically a process that scans your local music files and attempts to make versions of them available from Apple’s library in the cloud. Personally, I was using iTunes Match before Apple Music was even a service. The main difference between Apple Music Matching and iTunes Matching is that Apple Music Matching has DRM (digital rights management) and iTunes Match does not. Apple has a very good article about the two services here and I would recommend anyone contemplating either service to read the article closely.

(As a side note, anyone with or without Apple Music should have up to date backups of their files. Human error and hard drive failures are all too common.)

The thing they need to change first is the iTunes check boxes that are for “iCloud library” and “Show Apple Music”. They need to separate the options for Apple Music and iTunes Match and give you a much better idea of what happens when you check the boxes. I realize that some people do not read and just click through processes. However, at least careless people could not as easily blame confusion as their excuse for deleting their own files. (Note: I am not saying that we wouldn't still see click-bait articles by people that somehow lost their files, but maybe they would be met with more scrutiny than they are met with these days.)

The second issue is that Apple needs to do a better job of reading and matching metadata. They often mismatch files and match the wrong version of an album in the cloud or match it with the wrong artwork. While I have been forgiving of this problem because I have the actual original files available, it doesn’t fit the Steve Jobs idea that it should just work.

I have read suggestions that they should just upload all original files rather than trying to match them. While I would love to have all of my Apple Lossless files in the cloud, I just can’t see them doing this. Many people don’t have internet speeds that can handle this much data quickly moving to the cloud. The second problem is the data cap limits on many of the most popular internet services. Comcast caps at 300GB a month in this area, so people could end up going over their limits and have to pay more or have their internet shut off for the rest of the month. You think they get “tepid reviews” now, what do you think the consequences will be with the services eating up all your bandwidth when you have work to do from home?

Clearly, matching is a difficult issue to solve. Even if they can't find a perfect solution, they at least should move toward something that is more idiot-proof. I actually think the best solution may be to remove the feature all together unless someone pays extra for iTunes Match. That way they could get away from the DRM versions of your own matched music, which is where I think a lot of the confusion comes from.

Below is an example of the wrong artwork being applied to an album:

Siri

I think Siri is the best, most distinguishable, feature of Apple Music. To be honest, there isn’t much I would change with Siri in the actual Apple Music iOS app, other than giving it the ability to play music based on styles. I should be able to say “play saxophone jazz” and it should know what I want to hear.

That being said, I have bigger issues with how iOS handles audio, in general, and how it works with Siri. It should know that I have Bluetooth headphones or speakers in range. It should know that I have Airplay speakers in range. As a result, it should allow me to say “Play Chris Stapleton on Kitchen Speaker” and it show direct the music to that speaker. While Airplay is fairly easy to access from the Control Panel, Bluetooth requires a trip into settings to select the speaker. It feels like they could do so much more in this area.

Also, their Apple Music advertising need to focus on Siri. It is the one killer feature that makes it a "no-brainier" for iOS users. The recent Taylor Swift commercial (below) would have been much more effective if she had just used Siri to start music playing rather than needing so much interaction with the app.

Actually, it would have been so much better if they had showed the iPhone on a shelf across the room with the "For You" section up on the screen with Taylor getting on the treadmill while holding up her Apple Watch to say "Hey Siri, play treadmill playlist". Next, the phone starts playing her playlist. Just a lot more effective than needing to hit the screen 5 times to get to the music she wanted to hear.

Mastered For iTunes (MFiT)

First, let me say that I think Apple needs a lossless or high resolution solution for audiophiles. Why lose clients that care about audiophile quality to Tidal or Deezer? Assuming they don’t plan to do that, at the very minimum, they need to add a logo to let people know when an album is Mastered For iTunes. The iTunes Store supplies that information, so there is no excuse for not providing the information to Apple Music users.

More Descriptive Information

Apple could learn a lot from All Music in this area. All Music gives you a description of the artist, original release date information, genre (Rock), styles (Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, etc.). critic review, star rating, user reviews, etc. In comparison, for most albums in Apple Music you often get a very basic description of the album. They need to give a lot more detail.

If you want an idea of how this is done to perfection, get a trial run with RoonAudio (see picture below). They provide all of the above, the genre and styles, and they give you a button so you can click to play music in that style. Right now, I have to leave the Apple Music app and pull up All Music Guide or Wiki to learn more about an album or artist.

Full Featured Remote Capabilities

This is really a two part problem and I don’t care how it is solved, but it is a problem. Right now, the only way to get multiple room Airplay capabilities is with a computer in the mix. It is a bit ridiculous that multiple source Airplay isn’t available with the Apple Music iOS app, but if there is some sort of issue that makes Apple shy away from adding the feature to iOS (Note: the WHAALE app can handle multiple room AirPlay in iOS, so it is already possible with other apps), they have got to give us more functional control of Apple Music running on a computer within the iOS app.

Right now, Apple has an iOS app called Remote that will enable the user to control what is playing on a computer and where the music is playing. It will allow you to send the audio signal to multiple Airplay speakers around the house, which can be very convenient. However, right now the Remote app is limited to only playing music in your library. This means you can’t just start listening to another album on Apple Music without adding it to your library first.

Ideally, it would work like Rdio’s feature (which was later added by Spotify) that allowed you to control the Rdio program running on a computer from the Rdio iOS app. It had full control of what was playing and you simply used the Rdio iOS app as the remote. Apple needs to do more in this area for people that want multiple room audio or for those that have a computer plugged into their main system and want to utilize Apple Music more fully in this environment.

When Apple introduced the iPad Pro, they acted like you could replace a five year old Windows computer with an iPad. That is ridiculous when even basic AirPlay multiple room options aren't available on the iPad right now.

(Below is an example from the Remote app of how you have the ability to use Airplay with multiple Airplay devices when a computer is involved.)

To Wrap Things Up

I have read that some of the Apple Music changes will be simply cosmetic, like larger artwork and a monochrome theme. Personally, I wouldn’t call either of these changes “sweeping changes”. In fact, I like the look of the iOS app now. I do think we need some cosmetic updates to iTunes/Apple Music on the Mac, none as important as the addition of Siri, but I think the major changes I mentioned above would be more useful to a lot of users.

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Essential Alternative Albums - Mastered for iTunes

5/6/2016

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This is the seventh entry of an ongoing series to list (via screenshots) the "Mastered for iTunes" albums that Apple Music has spotlighted.

So far, we have the following links:
Essential Rock Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Jazz Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Metal Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Pop Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential Country Albums: Mastered for iTunes
Essential R&B Albums: Mastered for iTunes

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Apple Watch - A Year in Review

5/4/2016

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The Apple Watch was released about this time last year. I personally received one as a gift for Christmas, and after using it for months, I don’t agree with a lot of the narrative about the product. While many are saying it is a flop and isn’t worth wearing, the fact is that it has sold double the amount of units as the original iPhone in the first year (I read somewhere that they sold as many watches in the first year as the first three years of the iPhone). I also consider it worth wearing on a daily basis and I will discuss some of the reasons I like wearing it.

Notifications

The watch is fantastic for notifications. I have an iPhone 6s Plus and because of the size, I don't always want to carry it around the house or get it in and out of a pocket every time I get a notification.

With the watch, I can simply turn my wrist and see any notifications as they are received. This is nice for when I get a text, or a motion sensor on one of my security cameras goes off (one security app even sends a photo to the watch), when a major news event happens, etc. If it isn’t important, I can just put my wrist back down and get back to work. If it is something important, then I can then get my phone or iPad out and respond. In other words, it is much more useful to get immediate information and decide how or if to respond to it.

If it only did notifications, I would still happily wear the watch.

Bands

I want to discuss the straps and bands for the watch since they are major reason I like wearing the watch every day. From a strictly fashion stand point, the ability to easily switch in and out bands means you can wear a stainless steel band to dress up, a nylon band to dress it down, and pretty much have options for anything in between. Of course, you can change out bands on most watches, but it can be extremely difficult and requires tools. With the Apple Watch, you simply hold down a button and slide out the band. It only takes a few seconds.

Taking fashion out of the equation, the ability to easily change bands can be very convenient. I rarely ever wore my analog watch to work because it has a heavy stainless steel band and it would bang on my keyboard as I typed during the day. The magnetic design of some of the Apple Watch bands (including third party) means that the watch fits tightly against the wrist and their is not a large clasp holding one end of the band to the other. This means I can wear it comfortably every single day and it never gets in the way.

Remote Apps

For me, the remote apps are one of the best features of the watch and yet it rarely ever comes up in other reviews. I am not here to bash other reviewers, but readers have to realize that some of the reviewers get review samples to use for a specific amount of time and never really get a chance to live day to day with the product. Also, many are testing the weekly release of the new Android phone that hits the market and are simply carrying an iPhone to test the watch. In other words, they don't really have day to day relevant experience. My guess is that this is the reason you see so many articles that take the exact same viewpoints on products and services. It is much easier to read about someone else's experience and then use their experience in framing your own opinion. If you question that, look at some of the past Apple Music reviews, many reviewers quoted one guy's negative experience rather talking about their own experiences.

Anyway, now that I got that rant out of the way, it is an amazingly convenient remote control for many different things. For example, let's say you are in the kitchen and your phone is docked in the living room. If you have an AirPlay speaker in the room, you can open Apple Music on the watch, send the audio via AirPlay to the kitchen speaker, and tell Siri to play whatever you want to hear. I spend a lot of time grilling on the deck outside and use this feature to send music to where I am. The great thing is that once you select the speaker, you can then using any audio app on the watch to send audio to where you are. I use Pandora, Overcast, and Downcast this way all the time. It also provides volume control, in addition to features like skip, back, play, and pause, which is great to have on the wrist.

The remote features don't stop there if you have compatible devices or apps. Let's say you want to start a video recording. You can open the Filmic Pro app on the iPhone, get a live view right on the watch face, and start recording at the push of a button on the watch. It works the same way with the camera app and other photo/video apps.

I have lamps around the house plugged into iDevice plugs. I can tell Siri on the watch to "turn on lamp" and the iDevice will turn on and the lamp hooked to it will then also turn on. I also have a Wemo plug in the house. It doesn't work with Siri, but I have a "Do button" on the watch that can turn it on and off. First generation Phillips Hue Bulbs work the same way, but you can setup "scenes" so different lights come on and different colors can be selected. Second generation Hue bulbs are reportedly able to work with Siri on the watch (I plan to get second generation bulbs at some point, so I will write a review on them later in the
year).

Of course, the remote features don't stop there. You can also control an entire entertainment center right from the watch with the SimpleRemote app. It is a third party app that takes a little longer to load, but it works great. I have my entertainment center feeding two rooms. I can sit in my office and control every feature of every component right from the watch. Also, you don't have to have SimpleRemote to get some of the features. You can use Apple's Remote app for controlling the AppleTV or the Directv app for controlling just Directv. The remote features go on and on depnding on the electronics you own.

Third Party apps

This is probably the most controversial thing about the watch. Some third party apps aren't efficient to use on the watch. That doesn't mean we should just throw out the baby with the bath water. Just like on the iPhone, there are good and bad apps for the watch. The number of great apps do not and will never approach the number of great apps on the iPhone. This seems obvious since the screen is so small.

That doesn't mean that every third party watch app is awful. There are decent apps like Carrot Weather, Fantastical Calendar, Reminders Nano, Wunderlist, CNN, A Tiny Game of Pong, Find Near Me, and others I mentioned above.

Fitness

I have read that there are better fitness devices for the fitness fanatics. However, the Apple Watch is great for those that just need the nudge to get going and to progress.

The Watch has a heart rate monitor. It has activity rings that help you keep track of daily activities and it lets you set individual goals. There is a workout app and third party apps for running. There are also apps like Weight Watchers Mobile that lets you see you daily points at a glance, add to you daily points from favorites or by search, and much more. It also keeps track of activity points and weekly points. There is also the popular MyFitnessPal app and more. I could write all day about the numerous fitness apps, but the point is that plenty of people get motivated only after getting the watch.

Siri

I have mentioned some of the Siri functions: Apple Music and iDevices. However, it goes far beyond that. You can set reminders and alarms. Send messages.

My favorite is using Siri to add items to the Grocery list in the reminders app. With voice control, you can add items to a Wunderlist or search for items in the Consumer Reports app. You can also add entries to DayOne's journaling app or Evernote.

Apple Pay and Maps

Nothing beats Apple Pay on the watch. Every time I use it , I am always surprised by just how quick and easy it is to use. It beats taking out a wallet or phone. There is also the cool map feature with taps on get wrist. The different faces are also neat. You can pic your own photo or use one of Apple's faces and customize it with compatible apps. My favorite day to day face is the modular face with my calendar in one corner and Carrot Weather in the center.

Final thoughts

Anyone saying that the watch is useless is unimaginative or just stupid. Yes, I realize that not everyone wants to wear a watch, they might prefer keeping their phone in their hand all day or they could simply be a Ludite. Also, the watch isn't exactly cheap, either. As a result, it, like every other product on the market, it isn't for everyone.

However, for me, it saves tons of time and makes life easier. Time is my most important commodity, so anything that saves time and effort is worth something to me. Also, some have said that it is for people that are data addicted. For me, it is contrary to that. If I wanted more time with tech, I would pick up my iPhone instead since it is a much better product to serve that type of addiction. A tiny screen is about quickly getting things done (adding stuff to grocery lists, pausing a movie, sending a quick text, etc.) rather than spending lots of time interacting with it.

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Essential Soundtracks: Mastered for iTunes

J River plus Amazon Echo = ALL KINDS OF AWESOME!

Amazon Echo Dot

Mad Skills

House Band

Airfoil

Echo isn't mobile

Lexi

The Wrap Up

Essential Classical Albums: Mastered for iTunes

My Gadget Backpack

The Stuff

Five Apple Music Suggested Changes

Matching

Siri

Mastered For iTunes (MFiT)

More Descriptive Information

Full Featured Remote Capabilities

To Wrap Things Up

Essential Alternative Albums - Mastered for iTunes

Apple Watch - A Year in Review

Notifications

Bands

Remote Apps

Third Party apps

Fitness

Siri

Apple Pay and Maps

Final thoughts

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